Want your basic reproductive health services covered under health reform? Want to keep the coverage for reproductive health care, contraception, and abortion care you already have? Want to ensure that you, your mother, daugher, sister, friends, neighbors and the millions of women in the United States living without health insurance get coverage for primary reproductive health care once Congress gets through serving up sausage for your health benefits?

Tchen, who shared a panel with Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and
PPFA President Cecile Richards, provided participants with a status
update on health care reform and reiterated the Obama administration’s
commitment to women’s health.

"I can say this directly from the White House, the President
reiterated to all of us in the senior staff that health care is the
most important issue," said Tchen.

It is the signature issue that he ran on, it is what
he believes is one of the singularly most important reforms that need
to be made that affects America, that affects our economy.

Tchen also reminded the group that they had elected a pro-choice president. President Obama publicly re-affirmed his support for a woman’s right to choose just days after his inauguration, on Thursday, January 22nd, the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. He stated:

Roe v. Wade "not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom,
but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude
on our most private family matters," Obama said in a statement.

But, the PPFA panelists warned, his support for a woman’s right to choose and for access to the services needed to prevent unintended pregnancy, stem the spread of infections and ensure all women have primary reproductive health care won’t be enough to secure passage of a health reform bill that includes these essential health services.

In fact, both Republicans and conservative Democrats are pushing for restrictions in health reform legislation that could result in the loss of current benefits to millions of women.

"Health care reform must not leave women worse off than they are under our current system," wrote Richards in a recent action alert. But as various bills move through Congress, the "steady assault from anti-choice groups has become an avalanche," she said.

If the Right Wins, Women Will Lose

Today, the majority of American women with private or employer-provided
health insurance have policies that cover both contraceptive supplies
and abortion care, as well as pap smears, well-woman exams, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy care and other forms of primary, preventive reproductive health care.

A federally supported study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute assessing levels
of insurance coverage for a wide range of reproductive health services found that 87 percent of typical employer-based insurance policies in 2002
covered medically necessary or appropriate abortions. It also found that 86 percent of typical plans covered all five of the leading contraceptive
methods. Using different methods of collecting data, a 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) study found that 72 percent of employees had coverage for five reversible
methods of contraception (88 percent for oral contraceptives specifically) and that some 46 percent of covered workers had coverage for abortion. (Differences in the two studies are explained here.)

This coverage would be lost if reproductive health becomes the "bipartisan" bargaining chip for which it has been used by Democrats and Republicans for far too long. You know the refrain: "We need a ‘common-sense,’ ‘bipartisan’ compromise to pass this bill." Translation: Women get thrown off the bus.

But if reproductive health care including but not limited to
abortion is not covered under whatever health care reform results, we
can be sure that both women and society will continue to pay a high
price. There will be more infection and disease, more unintended pregnancy, and more, not fewer, abortions.

A number of recent articles on RH Reality Check have explored in depth the social, economic and health costs of disparities in access to reproductive health care that currently exist. For example, today, roughly 16.7 million women are uninsured, and thus likely to
postpone care and delay or forego important preventive care. This means preventable illness goes undiagnosed. For example, increased access to pap smears for women who do not have these services will save lives and money. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2009, about
11,270 cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the
United States. Non-invasive cervical cancer is estimated by some researchers to be 4 times more common than invasive
cervical cancer.
About 4,070 women will die from cervical cancer in the United
States during 2009 according to the ACS. Early detection and early treatment = lives–and money–saved.

Poor women also rely heavily on publicly funded contraceptive services,
which prevent 1.94 million unintended pregnancies, including almost
400,000 teen pregnancies, each year. These pregnancies would otherwise
result in 860,000 unintended births, 810,000 abortions and 270,000
miscarriages. Taken together, all of these are critical to being able
to prevent an unintended pregnancy and hence a potential abortion.

Yet in 2006, only
about half (54 percent) of those in need of publicly funded birth
control actually had access to services provided by Medicaid, Title X
and other sources of government funding. Indeed, as Elisabeth Sowecke wrote here just this week, the number of women who qualify for but are as yet unable to access Medicaid-funded abortion services is large and growing. This denial of care represents a particularly insidious level of discrimination against both the women and their families and a violation of basic human rights.

The reality of these costs also are not lost on the governors of some of the largest states, whose budgets are reeling from a combination of high unemployment and growing demands on social safety nets, including Medicaid.

Today, 16 governors, led by Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio, sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to support the inclusion of the Medicaid Family Planning State Option in health care reform. This critical provision provides basic preventive health care, including breast and cervical cancer screenings and contraception, to millions of women and is currently in President Obama’s fiscal year 2010 budget.

"Currently, 27 states have sought and recieved federal waivers to expand eligibility for family planning services," wrote the governors.

States have repeatedly demonstrated that expanding health care coverage for women in this way also results in significant cost savings. Expanding the Medicaid Family Planning State Option would allow states to expand Medicaid coverage for family planning services, without a waiver, to those who don’t otherwise qualify for full Medicaid benefits. These cost savings could help states avoid additional cuts to critical health programs and allow them to use the savings for other pressing needs.

The Medicaid Family Planning State Option will also save federal funds. The Congressional Budget Office determined that the Medicaid Family Planning State Option saves the federal government $200 million over five years and $700 million over 10 years.

Where’s the Opposition?

Irrespective of the cost savings, these benefits are in fact in danger at the hands of a
majority-male Congress whose coverage for Viagra remains
well-protected.

Some of the opposition comes from likely suspects and is based on misinformation campaigns that belie their true purpose. Republicans in Congress, like Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Mike Pence–who introduced an amendment today to the House appropriations bills to defund Planned Parenthood–just can’t seem to get the connection between increased access to prevention services, improved health and reduced need for abortions, the women’s right they love to hate.

And it is no surprise that groups like Family Research Council and the National Right to Life Committee are against not only funding for abortion services, but also for contraception. FRC, for example, continues to perpetuate myths about an amendment to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee health reform bill originally sponsored by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). This amendment, which passed as part of that bill, would ensure coverage of well-woman care, HIV prevention and testing, pap smears, pregnancy care, and contraceptive supplies. FRC continues to claim it forces taxpayers to pay for abortions for the first time in 30 years.

But then there are Democrats who may either "cut a deal" on coverage of abortion services or who oppose it outright.

For example: while the House and Senate HELP Committees have passed their bills, and neither of those includes any restrictions on coverage of reproductive health care, Tchen noted:

This was not easy to achieve in committee and won’t be easy to hold on to the Senate floor or on the House floor. And the President can not do it alone. His efforts alone will not be enough. It will take each of you to raise your voices when you go home and here in DC and to spread the word.

In fact, as of this writing, trouble may be brewing in the Senate Finance Committee and is boiling up in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Senate Finance has been promising a bill "for weeks" according to one source, but nothing has as yet materialized publicly. Meanwhile, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of Committee has according to Dana Goldstein, "indicated some openness to compromising on abortion rights in exchange for Republican support for a final reform bill." While Baucus’s office underscores his pro-choice position, co-Chair Charles Grassley (R-IA) is not pro-choice, and in the still largely old boys club that is the Senate, that "bipartisan" thing trumps women’s rights every time.

"Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee are pushing for language in
health care reform legislation that would eliminate coverage for
abortion services," stated a coalition of religious groups that
support abortion rights. "If this happens, many women could lose
coverage for abortion services that their private insurance currently
includes. Plus, millions of uninsured women will still lack a basic
health care service despite having been promised a better quality of
life," says Rev. Carlton Veazey, president and CEO, Religious Coalition
for Reproductive Choice.

"If these senators are allowed to deny
coverage of abortion services," Veazey continued,

the burden will inevitably fall on
low-income women and widen the huge gap in health status and access to
health care services that reforms are meant to remedy. Compared to their higher-income counterparts, low-income women are
four times as likely to have an unintended pregnancy and five times as
likely to have an unintended birth.

"As people of faith, we
believe that health care reform should expand coverage to provide for
the basic services that every human being deserves; it should not deny
essential services to half of the population and aggravate the
troubling disparities in health care affecting minorities and
low-income individuals," Veazey adds.

In the House, Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) (who this week helpfully tried to re-insert funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs into the House appropriations bill) has threatened to halt passage of legislation unless it explicitly "excludes public funds for abortions." Stupak claims to have 39 House Democrats in line to vote against passage. Today’s Congress Daily reports that:

Stupak said he will consider voting against the health reform bill if leaders do not allow a floor vote on an amendment that explicitly prohibits using public funds for abortions. If the vote is not allowed, he and other Democrats opposing abortion rights will likely vote against the rule allowing consideration of the health reform bill, he said.

Even the Senate HELP Committee–which as noted above has passed its bill–debated a half-dozen abortion-related amendments, defeating most on identical 12-11 votes, including one that would have barred people who get government insurance subsidies from buying private insurance plans that include abortion coverage.

In fact, even the "contraceptive option" was deemed to controversial for at least one Democrat. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) voted against the Mikulski Amendment ensuring coverage of contraception and of essential service providers. Calls to his office inquiring as to the reason for his vote against contraceptive coverage were not returned.

Public v. Private: Confusing the Issues

The basic argument for those who are trying to completely eliminate even the possibility of coverage for abortion services under health care reform is that "no public funds should be allocated for abortions" because "we don’t do that."

But that is, not surprisingly, a misleading argument because health reform is intended to completely transform insurance coverage and to expand the range of essential coverage, and as noted earlier, most private plans today already cover these services.

In order to ensure all Americans are covered, most health reform proposals include options for "insurance exchanges" and other methods through which the federal government might partially subsidize the costs of insurance coverage for those without employer-based insurance, or those who can not afford to pay out-of-pocket for an insurance policy. What the Republicans and the Democrats opposed to continuing current coverage (including current abortion coverage) for women want to do is to elminate the possibility of coverage from either subsidized or private plans whether or not the federal government is subsidizing a particular person.

This is sort of like applying the "global gag rule" to private insurance plans because even if you are paying for 90 percent of your policy, the restrictions apply both to the federally funded portion (10 percent) as well as to the 90 percent of the policy you pay for. Moreover, some analysts believe the implication is that even in cases where you pay for 100 percent of the policy you choose, if the federal government is involved in any way in that insurance plan by subsidizing others, your coverage would still be restricted.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told NPR last week that not letting people use what might be very small subsidies to buy private coverage was going too far.

"The next step in this logic will be to require anybody seeking these services to walk to the clinic, lest they use federal highways, supported by federal highway funds," he said.

What is more: The public is against having the Senate or the House dictate their medical choices.

A survey conducted by the Mellman Group for the National Women’s Law Center of 1,000 likely voters found that:

Absent coverage for women’s reproductive health services, majorities oppose reform. If reform eliminated current insurance coverage of reproductive health services such as birth control or abortion, nearly two-thirds (60%) would oppose the plan and nearly half (47%) would oppose it strongly.

Voters want an independent commission to make coverage decisions, not politicians. A strong majority of voters (75 percent) prefer that an independent commission of citizens and medical professionals make decisions about what should be covered under reform rather than the President and Congress. Fully 73 percent of voters want an independent commission to decide whether abortion should be covered, while just 16 percent want the President and Congress involved.

Even in the face of opposition arguments, majorities support requiring coverage of abortions under reform. After hearing strong arguments both for and against covering abortion under reform, two-thirds (66 percent) support coverage, agreeing that health care, not politics, should drive coverage decisions. A majority of voters (72 percent) reported that they would feel angry if Congress mandated by law that abortion would not be covered under a national health care plan.

Voters want rules to stop insurance companies from discriminating against women. Even in the face of industry claims of too much government interference, 62 percent agree that reform should establish new rules to treat everyone fairly and stop discrimination, while far fewer (32 percent) side with opponents’ claims.

Where does it go from here?

Even despite the evidence, the benefits and the clear public support for women to continue making their own medical decisions with their families and their doctors, and for full coverage of these services, anti-choice activists and politicians continue to play the same political shell games with women’s health and lives.

So groups are heeding the call to "bring it."

And you can join them.

Here are links to action by some of the organizations mobilizing to ensure reproductive health services remain available to women and their families:

To stay involved and informed in the healthcare reform debate. I visit Jill Stanek’s site daily to read what lies or misinformation is out there….they’ve decided to hold a conference to really push these things through: “healthcare reform will mean babies being killed on demand and we’ll have to pay for it, etc! OMG!”
But I just don’t know how to counter the arguments without a good background knowledge on it: is there a site I can go to to find out more, a rundown of what’s in the bill, anything like that? What can I do besides contact my congresspersons (which I’ve done)?

jodi-jacobson

These are great questions. And you have pout your finger on how difficult it is for anyone not tracking these things daily as their day job to keep track of any of this.

Here is the situation.

There are numerous bills in numerous stages of "completion." At some point in the future, though we don’t know when, all of these bills will (hopefully) go through a process of synthesizing and both the Senate and House will (again hopefully) come up with bills that consistently address issues.

This is however a long, fraught, and unpredictable process. There are several bills, and while some committees like Senate HELP and House HELP have done theirs–and you can for example go to the websites of these committees and find these bills– others, including the Senate Finance Committee and the House Energy and Commerce committee have not finished their own bills. I do not believe there is as yet a formal public version of the Senate Finance Committee bill (which is part of the problem…).

Kaiser Family Foundation has a very good comparison chart of the original proposals put forth by many actors, though these are broad brush and don’t speak to reproductive health issues per se. To a great extent these may also be out of date for one or another proposal.

Bottom line is that we will continue to try to update on specifics of bills on our issues as these are made clear, and you can also find some material on the websites of the relevant committees.

Hope this helps.

Best, Jodi

invalid-0

Since the right to abortion is legally based on a right to privacy, it should be kept private. If you want an abortion, pay for it yourself. Women should have the right to belong to an insurance risk pool that doesn’t cover the grisly practice of abortion, since it is not a “benefit” they value or would use, and indeed recognize it as the taking of a human life. I see lots of very peppy women posting here that could really help change the world, if instead falling the sword for abortion, they encouraged parents to conscientiously educate and supervise their teens, and guide them through techniques for making sound judgments for their futures. Doing this negates most of the impetus for making women slaves to screening tests and procedures and relegating them to being hapless parasites and chronic dependents of the conventional medical system.

independentminded

This:

If you want an abortion, pay for it yourself.

is something that I totally disagree with, Lucille. I support government funding of abortions, because every woman and/or girl, regardless of her socioeconomic status, etc., has the right to an abortion if she deems it necessary, and I think that forcing a woman to pay the price out of her own pocket is essentially depriving her of the right to determine her own destination, to make up her own mind, and to have control over her own body. Inotherwords, that’s another loophole in the pro-choice movement.

crowepps

Now this a really creative method of keeping medical costs down — giving individuals the ‘right’ to pick their own insurance risk pool by excluding everyone with whose decisions they disagree!

<sarcasm on>

Since I’m a healthy weight, I want to belong to an insurance pool that doesn’t include any fat people because gluttony is a sin and no diabetics since why should I pay for people who can’t stop sucking down sweeties? I don’t want any coverage provided for liposuction or cosmetic surgery or botox because people should get wrinkly and saggy when they get old; why should my premiums help finance vanity? Since I’m female, I want to belong to an insurance pool that doesn’t cover male sexual dysfunction — people shouldn’t be having sex anyway. I want to belong to an insurance pool that doesn’t cover pregnancy or childbirth – why should the ‘consequences’ of somebody else’s sex life come out of my pocket? We can also eliminate coverage for people who drink alcohol and people who tan and people who get hurt driving recklessly or riding motorcyles and people who get hurt doing dangerous stuff like diving into ponds. We can eliminate all that coverage for people whouse mental illness as an ‘excuse’ as well. And those ‘Type A’ characters whose overachieving creates stress that makes them ill ought to finance their own health care. Eliminate coverage for ‘fundamentalists’ who reject science and trust God, we certainly don’t want to unconstitutionally impose medical science on them, and if they pray harder, God will heal them.

Heck, the only people who ‘deserve’ to have health insurance at all obviously are slim vegetarians who exercise sensibly, work at safe jobs and are too mellow to feel ‘stress’.

<sarcasm off>

Back in the real world, let’s cover every legal medical procedure for everybody, not because we are ‘enabling’ them or because everybody in the pool has the right to make decisions about the health care of others, but because none of us is perfect and we ALL make choices which negatively impact our health. We can eliminate the problem of ‘approving’ of their care by all keeping our noses out of each other’s private business.

invalid-0

thank you so much for this post Jodi! i am circulating the link widely. to Kater: here’s a breakdown of HR 3200 from the CPA (no language specifically on women/SRH): http://ellenshaffer.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-on-hr-3200-public-plan-delayed.html. I and the women I work with would also really be interested in a resource that outlines the Senate & House bills on SRH/women’s health issues in a way that’s easy to understand and pass along.

jodi-jacobson

Thanks for the suggestion. I have thought of the same and this is something we may try to do during recess, when there will at least be both momentary clarity and a chance to sift through what is on the table so far.

best, Jodi

invalid-0

Thank you all for the help; I can’t wait to start figuring things out….or at least have a better idea of the bill and the issues. I’ll put it on my list, for when I have free time – I’m graduating from graduate school in two weeks and have far too much to keep up with!